Ray Ison, Professor in Systems at the UK Open University since 1994, is a member of the Applied Systems Thinking in Practice Group. From 2008-15 he also developed and ran the Systemic Governance Research Program at Monash University, Melbourne. In this blog he reflects on contemporary issues from a systemic perspective.

Sunday, April 24, 2016

5th Symposium of Relating Systems Thinking and Design
Systemic Design for Social Complexity

Ontario College of Art and Design

Ontario Canada http://systemic-design.net
October 13-15, 2016

The theme for the 2016 symposium is Systemic Design for Social
Complexity, which calls for design methodologies informed by research
and real applications to address problems in the unbounded complexity of
social systems. Systemic design addresses social complexity at
multiple levels of interaction: Sociotechnical work practices and
technology, Complex service design and integration, Organizational
design and management, and Social system and policy design.

The 2016 theme calls for "completing" research and fruitful case
studies that share results and impacts with the RSD community. Across
all topic areas, we are dealing with design problems for both emergence
(uncertain future evolution) where "change unfolds" and governance
(design, evaluation and control in complex systems) where change is
intentionally designed. Systemic design aims to integrate across methods
and theories of change.

We are interested in studies and projects that bridge differing
epistemic and methodological commitments (as found in healthcare),
rigorously adapting from system theories and design methods (as in
system model mapping), and across sociotechnical and ecological
approaches to systems.

The RSD5 call for participation requests an extended abstract that
expresses your proposal to share original research, case studies, panel
sessions/dialogues, posters and workshops. Ten research challenge areas
are encouraged within the social complexity theme:

* Democracy, Policy Design and Modes of Governance

* Public Services Design and Civic Innovation

* Sustainability and Socio-ecological Policy

* Built Environment and Design of Settlements

* Capacity Building and Resilient International Development

* Systemic Business and Organizational Design

* Social System Design and Transition Design

* Service Design, Healthcare System Design

* Design for Complex Sociotechnical Systems

* Theories and Methods of Systemic Design

As proceedings from prior RSD symposia show, not all topics may be
represented in the final conference. We will design the final
presentation tracks "emergently" based on the papers selected from the
review process. http://systemic-design.net/rsd-symposia/

Abstracts should be no more than 1000 words, listing all authors
and affiliations, and summarizing the research or a case project
proposed for presentation. Inclusion of key images is encouraged. Please
provide references for all citations (APA format).

Reviews are conducted by two independent reviewers experienced in
peer review and the RSD symposia, following the criteria of: Fit to
themes, Significance, Originality, Balance or depth of design and
systemics, and Maturity (readiness for presentation). Accepted
abstracts will be asked to give a 20 minute presentation at the
symposium. Papers not accepted for the main paper tracks may be asked to
consider a Poster, or if appropriate, a Dialogue session. Please see
the RSD5 website for guidelines on the symposium presentations and
formats for presentation and discussion.

All selected papers will be presented at the symposium, where we
invite participants to engage with authors with questions and feedback
that might contribute to general learning and application. Presenting
authors will be asked to provide a public version of their presentation
for the RSD5 proceedings immediately following the conference and a
proceedings paper (3000-5000 words) by Dec 3, 2016.

As in prior RSD symposia, several key papers will be invited by the
program committee to submit a full paper for publication in a special
issue in FORMakademisk, the Norwegian design research journal. Other
publishing opportunities may be available as well for papers in certain
topic areas or significance.

Please contact Peter Jones or another member of the program
committee if you have questions. We hope to see in Toronto this
October!